2:39:1 Widescreen

I’ve gotten used to the cinematic disasters Bruce Willis has attached himself to over the past few years.  I’ll admit, I was surprised to see him in Motherless Brooklyn, and after his impressive performance in Glass, I had hoped he was going to attempt to get himself in to some higher caliber films.  Willis has stayed in shape, especially for an action icon who is getting up there in his years, and he still manages to have a presence when he appears on screen.  Sure, I get that we can’t expect him to keep throwing himself out of exploding buildings and having elaborate fight scenes. In a perfect world, I’d love to see him be able to revisit the role of Joe Hallenbeck in a The Last Boy Scout sequel. Heck, while staying on the nostalgia train, I’d be on board with a Hudson Hawk sequel over some of these direct-to-video films he’s been doing.  Getting back to Trauma Center, we have a new direct-to-video action film that features Willis attempting to save a young girl’s life who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Is the film worth checking out, or is it one you should simply pull the plug on and avoid?
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Back in the 80’s and 90’s it was a glorious time for crazy, over-the-top action films. The names that most notably come to mind when I think of this time in action cinema are Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer.  They were the guys who knew how to make a popcorn action film: Beverly Hills Cop, Days of Thunder, Bad Boys, and many more. While Line of Duty isn’t quite in the same league of these films, it definitely has its roots in these films, and for a VOD action film, well, this film is all kinds of absurd fun.   Director Steven C. Miller has had some duds over the span of his career, though I did enjoy his take on Silent Night, but Line of Duty shows that the man is capable of helming a white-knuckle action film if given a proper budget and script to work with. When it comes to Aaron Eckhart, I’m kind of surprised we don’t see him as the lead in more tent pole action films.  Sure, many of us know him for his turn as Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight, but he’s a guy with so much untapped talent. It was nice to see it on display in this film. Frank Penny (Eckhart) is a disgraced cop who is responsible for getting a kid killed and is now stuck working as a beat cop.  It doesn’t take long for the film to ramp up as Frank is caught up in a foot chase with a suspect involved with the kidnapping of the chief of police’s daughter.  There is a lot of running in this opening act, and things go bad to worse for Penny when he’s put in a situation where he kills the only lead to finding the kidnapped daughter.
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I have to be honest; when I got this title and saw that Jim Gaffigan was starring, I didn’t know what to expect, but I went into this film with some low expectations.  I’m a fan of Gaffigan, and I own a few of his stand-up albums, but seeing him headlining a thriller, well, it was a tough leap for me.  Now that I’ve seen the film, I got to say I’m impressed by what he pulled off with this film.  That being said, as I was watching this film, I couldn’t help but see a similarity between Gaffigan and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.  I doubt this was intentional, and perhaps it’s just my subconscious attempting to make these connections, but Gaffigan’s performance in this film  is on par with many of the performances we saw from Hoffman in his later years. As for the film, American Dreamer follows Cam (Gaffigan), a down-on-his-luck schlub who at one point was living the American dream: a good job, a nice home, and a wife and child.  Then he lost his job, and everything else seemed to disappear around him. Now he’s a driver for a ride share company, where he struggles with paying child support and has had a bit of a mental breakdown.
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